Jha'ahira
Current activities Visited a temple of Ilmater in which to claim something of hers, but instead found a Powerstone left behind by an unknown party. The powerstone contains a variant instant-travel spell with a single destination. After giving due warning to all others involved, Jha'ahira has used the Powerstone and not returned yet. Art by @rhoriangelus: http://tinyurl.com/jha-ahira Character information Scenes from a Life Childhood 2 Uktar, second of the Rotting, 1457 DR It was a difficult night, the midwife had to stay from sundown until the following sunrise, waiving additional pay for the long hours of her work. In her mind, this family had already suffered enough. Forsele and Dorrick had once been among the fairly affluent humans of Airspur. Though Dorrick was penniless and uneducated, he still had a respected last name, Dindrel, and Forsele was one of very few humans who in the city who knew their numbers and letters. That meant she had earned a premium working in the houses of the city's lower nobility as a servant, and ensured for their family a reasonable life. A pregnancy and a difficult birth changed all that. With a shattered health and a child to raise, Forsele could no longer work. Within the first months, they abandoned their home in Airspur proper and moved into The Crack, the human slum at the edges of the city. By the end of the year, when she began to feel fit for work again, life had begun to bloom inside her a second time. With dawn, though, came a great deal of relief. Both mother and child had lived, and the baby was a girl - that in itself was cause for great celebration. Their first child, Dhorien, had always been a little thing. They had feared a brother might prove too rough for the sickly boy, growing up. As it turned out, the concern was unfounded as Dhorien did not live to see the end of that year. Jha'ahira grew up with only a vague awareness that she'd once had a brother. 17 Marpenoth, 1467 DR The tiny room was completely filled with golden light. It flowed in from the windows and from the many, many flaws on the thin wooden wall facing southwards. It was a warm, beautiful day outside - possibly one of the last such in the year. The girl could not be more furious with being stuck in her house. Outside, laughter could be heard. She couldn't be sure what game was being played, but obviously it was more fun than being trapped at home with her mother and a musty book she seemed to treat more carefully than she did her daughter. "Inside, Jha'ahira. The lesson is not out the window." A voice like ringing steel - hard enough, and high-pitched enough. Among the people of the crack, her mother was uniquely capable of embodying the airs of nobility, despite being as piss-poor and lowborn as everyone else. With a grumble, the girl turned back around and onto the book. She squinted - needlessly, given the ample light in the room, but some part of her mind felt that making the act resemble a great effort might guilt her mother. A moment after the sounds started to flow out of her lips - slow, stilted, one at a time. The kind of speech of one who is ramming letters together in their heads and coaxing sound out of it, as opposed to actually drawing any comprehension, "ss-o. So. The elves of Ch- Chho-ond-- tha's not fair, it's a big word! And right at the start!" "Chondalwood. Do you think writers should save the big words for the ends of sentences, then?" "They should! That would make it easier for everyone." The woman huffed impatiently, then tapped the book again to get the girl reading. Before long, with great effort and more than a few pauses to piece words together in her head, the page had been concluded. They rarely went longer than one page at a time, at least for now. She was only faintly aware that at first she'd couldn't manage full paragraphs at all... "Very good. You can read more before sundown-" the expected groan came, and went thoroughly ignored. "We'll have a visitor next month, and he'll want to see that you're being taught." That got some of her attention, and she turned back away from the window again, staring up at her mother with those too-inquisitive eyes. "A visitor? Why does he care if I know letters?" "An... uncle." The silence was telling, though the girl could not know what of. "And he is the one who asked me to teach you in the first place. He should care." The tiny head slowly cocked to the head, eyeing the mother as if she was not making the slightest bit of sense. "And why do we care that he cares?" That got a few moments of silent blinking and thinking from the older woman, time that she eventually filled up by reaching down for the book and closing it with reverent care. "He is rich." Her eventual answer came, sounding noncommittal. "We have a genasi uncle?" She sounded excited now - and worried. She thought she'd like being rich, but doubted she could ever live down what the other kids would do to her if that was the case. "What? No, he's human! What nonsense is this now, Jha'ahira?" "Well, you said he's rich!" Hands slapped down on her lap, excitement giving quick way to annoyance. The mother huffed as she tucked the book at the bottom of the lone chest in the back of the house, under the bed, then set the lock on it. "Outside of Akanul, most people who are rich are human, child." That drew a long silence of astonishment, her mother might have found a more receptive audience if she'd told the girl that outside of Akanul people held geese juggling contests. Her answer, when it came, was slow and thoughtul. "Then why are we here?" "Because it's our home." The older woman's words sounded reverent as she crosses the room to crouch down in front of the girl, setting bright blue eyes into the girl's own. "And that matters. You can build another house, but making a new home isn't as easy." The mother set off to her housework, not another word given - she had been wordlessly excused. Within moments she was outside, getting up to every form of trouble conceivable with the other children. Though she laughed and played and pranked as much as all of them, all through the day and for the next weeks, she sometimes paused to give those words some thought. They seemed powerful, important. Months later, when Candor Mattrel, captain of the Sapphire Crescent street gang of Airspur, preached almost the same notions to the pack of nigh-feral children of the crack, he'd found a very receptive audience in the girl. Youth 12 Flamerule, 1471 DR They were a rowdy crowd, hormones, early teenage aggression and rebellion at its purest. Most people knew to cross the street rather than pass among them, for they filled one side of the alley entirely. The youngest in the crowd were barely out of their tenth birthday, the oldest well into her thirteenth. They all carried, sewn somewhere on the ragged clumps of cloth they had for clothes a striking, sky-blue cloth sewn loosely on. Usually, it was held together by only one or two stitches, such that it could be torn loose easily. It was one thing to be proud of your gang affiliation, another entirely to want to display it in front of the guard, should any ever come. It was a stiflingly hot summer day, the air was dry as bones and dust blew through the streets. Airspur was built entirely within a vast canyon, The Crack was precisely that: A break on the canyon's face, near enough to the city that one could live there and still work in the city proper, but tucked away our of sight neatly enough that none of the nobility felt the impulse to do anything about it. It was a vertical slum, an unsurprising fact given that many of the laborers who had erected the great palaces and noble villas of the city proper lived there. According to the natives, the best builders in the city lived in The Crack, and they put their craft to smart and efficient use. It wasn't pretty, but most of the time it was steady, and it kept the dustbowl out. The streets were not so fortunate. Most of them were winding, twisting affairs, a maze without exit for anyone but a native, and the dust blown from the plateaus above poured through the streets, leaving houses and denizens covered in the grime of the arid highlands. As if in reaction to nature's savagery, the youths were not so different - that morning had seen one of their many and frequent fights. Dane had been out of line. The boy was just eleven, but growing to be bigger than most of the older in the group. He was also smart, and ambitious. That morning, though, he'd stepped out of line one time too often, and the Sapphire Crescent didn't tolerate dissent - the punishment was dolled out harshly and immediately. It is for that reason that Jha'ahira started the formal meeting that morning with raw fists, a bruised eye and a senseless boy as her seat. They were the youth cell of one of the largest chondathan gangs in the city, supposedly founded by a captain of the now-legendary mercenary army that had once, a century before, been the pride of Chondath. Most of them would make it to adulthood shaped into good muscle for the streets - thugs to secure safehouses, intimidate rivals and coerce protection, some few would be trained for gentler, smarter work, and a great many others would not make it to adulthood at all. A vague awareness of this fact was in the mind of all the children, which is what made the clear establishment of the pecking order such an absolute necessity. That morning, the status quo had held - Jha'ahira was on top. She set about carving up her territory. Her cell were beggars and cutpurses - every one of them was both, though not all particularly good. She had fewer streets she could work at than she had men, though, so they often doubled up, leading to less coin for each at the end of the day, and a greater chance of the guard catching one of them. In truth, they mostly robbed from humans, the Sapphire Crescent wasn't foolish enough to allow their youth cell to operate in the richer streets of Airspur proper. There was only one street of any real worth on her entire territory: Coin lane. The story went that it was named after the procession of a waukeenar festival that had once taken place in the city, long ago. Today, it was known merely for being the nearest that a tax collector would come to The Crack. It was the only place in her territory were real money, and real genasi were to be found. She was feeling generous that day - or maybe it was something else. There was certainly a coy smile on her lips as she assigned Randall, alone to that street. He was just a few months younger than her, and the prettiest of the lot by far. The territory carved up for the day, the group began to disperse. They would meet in the same street come nightfall to give reports, but most of them wouldn't be seeing the others until then. Randall lingered, though. His embarrassed smile only made her coyness deepen as he explained he'd ruined his knife doing woodwork the previous night. It was meaningful, then, when the girl produced her own family heirloom for him. The dagger had been her mother's, and presumably had passed down along the family from the times of Chondath the Golden. It was supposedly enchanted, though she knew nothing about that beyond the fact that she'd never managed to unsharpen the thing. The handle had been replaced numerous times, of course, the current one was chipped wood, with her name carved on the side. She'd made it herself, when she was seven and had first been gifted the dagger by her mother. They lingered together a moment, there might have been the intimation of the curiosity, or the will for a step closer, but it never came. They parted in opposite directions, with much work to do. 11 Kythorn, 1471 DR Coins, jewelry even a few beautifully worked, ceremonial daggers formed a small pile in the center of the alley, the crowd of youths clustered around it. All eyes were wide and hungry - despite some of them not having made it back to make the split that night, it was still one of the best takes they'd ever had. As per usual, jewelry and such were set aside, as was half the coin - those went to the Crescent Sapphire's leadership. The rest was theirs to divide. Being the only literate one in the group, Jha'ahira had to handle the maths. She always gave everyone an equal share, only occasionally giving herself a copper or two less in order to make the split work. Not all of her boys trusted her, but those few who knew their numbers at least a bit would be able to vouch for her to the others - it went a long way to keeping her post. Soon the split was done, and each one of them set off in different directions. This night, they'd made more coin than their parents would make in a week. For some, it meant food on the table for the whole family, or the debtors staved off for another month. For others, it meant a quick run to one of the seedier dens in the town - they would be the youngest patrons at the place, but some of them were already familiar faces. The Dindrel girl probably had the most complex routine with her coin. Her parents still claimed to believe she was working as a pot-girl at one of the estates in the city proper. They'd definitely noticed her odd hours, the bruises, the blue cloth and all the other signs of her real work, but they covered their own eyes and pretended not to see. They needed the coin too much, and had given up on controlling the girl years ago. Still, appearances had to be kept. She would take about half the take straight home and claim it was her pay as well a small extra - she'd invented a story about befriending one of the noble scions in the house she supposedly worked at, and how he'd gift her a bit of extra coin when he could. It was a flimsy story, but the parents did a good job of pretending to believe. The rest she'd hide in her stash, a slow-growing but already comparatively sizeable thing, meant for the day when a storm blew their house down, or a drought drove the price of food too high to manage. The smell was her first tip to something being wrong. The crack never smelled good, but it rarely smelt quite that smoky. The cramped nature of the winding corridors that made up the streets meant she could not have a clear look to the source of the smell, and the natural assumption was that some house had burnt down because of some cooking mishap. It was a rare occurrence, but not unheard-of. It was the screams that really got her heart hammering in her chest and the seed of fear growing in her mind. Suddenly, the corridors were clustered with people running away from the entrance of the shantytown, almost trampling her in their hast. From behind, screams of pain, anguish and rage came, mingled with the occasional sound of steel on steel - she didn't know then, but it was the sound of a battle. With no hesitation, she shifted her path. Hurrying along little-known nooks and crannies, climbing over some of the shorter houses, she diverted from her home to instead head towards the Sapphire Crescent's headquarters - she'd be safer there, and for all she knew her parents would make the same choice when the chaos got to their street. It was jumping off one of those roofs and onto one of the major streets that she landed almost directly on top of Candor, who'd been hurrying in the opposite direction. To her eyes, the man was an ancient, a face full of lines made even more stark by the complete absence of hair. To eyes more adept at gauging age, he was clearly in his fourties, an elder by the shanty town's standards, but still lively enough. The strength and speed of youth had still not quite fled him, and he wore reinforced leather armor and paired daggers with the confident air of a born predator. There was no warning when the man grabbed her by the shoulder, squeezing down painfully, pinning her in place as he leaned down, grey eyes boring into her own, searching for something. "Why did you do it?" The words were a low rumble - they were far enough from the chaos below now that he was just barely audible. She stammered, half a dozen half-words coming out of her lips - puzzlement blended with denial was obvious enough, despite not a single complete word making it out. Regardless, he apparently saw enough in her eyes, as the hand finally slipped from her shoulder, and a small measured nod came. "It is your name they came in screaming for. Murdered taxman, third cousin of some noble brat or other, enough pull to get a full detachment coming in house by house. Know anything about that?" She'd groaned before he even finished the story, her mind having already made the connection. She shook her head slowly, sighing. She hated ratting her boys out. "Borrowed my knife to Randall - he didn't come back tonight. Know why now, huh?" The man stood up to his full height, grunting some vague assent. He looked around, taking in the scene - there were tall buildings to either side of them, and the street was both tight and short, granting no view to the chaos slowly making its way up the streets. The screams could be heard, though, as well as the smell. He seemed indecisive for a long time, considering something unknown before finally looking down at the wide-eyed girl away, a look on his face that was an odd blend of pained resignation and harsh determination. "Have you heard of Spheres?" She bobbed her head up and down - it had been a Waukeenar festival, before the Spellplague. She'd heard all the stories about sumptuous parades, and magical spheres filled with valuables flung to the waiting people, sharing the wealth of the temple out with the city. "We were going to do our version. Now its blowing up on our faces. Come on, we need a look." He commanded with casual ease, and she found herself in step with him as he strode to the stairs built around one of the buildings nearby, rising up out of the streets and to the roofs, where they could finally have a clear view of what was happening. She almost lost her footing when she first came to the roof. Vivid flame was eating up much of the lower ranges of the shanty town, wild winds rapidly carrying the blaze upward. The light of it all was bright enough to drown out the light of the rising sun, slowly peeking up from the horizon, timidly as if ashamed of having its fire competed with. Through it all, a small column of genasi soldiers strolled up. Most of them were fire-heads, all those who could manifest that elemental essence, no doubt, with only a few air-heads in their midst kept to the edges, far from the flames. They were organized, a great metal fist of military might rolling up the main street. Smaller groups of them would break off when they got to each building or side-street, scouring house by house even in the midst of the fire. Even as she watched, a scream drew her attention to a house not far away - a familiar young man was struggling with a trio of the guardsmen, putting up a might struggle not to be drawn from his house, all the while clutching something tightly against his chest. Eventually, he was pulled out, losing his balance to come down on his face. The flames exploded outward, vivid, bright alchemist's fire exploding outwards, consuming the entire squadron. Two of the guardsmen stepped away from the blaze, singed but conscious, their szuldar glowing brightly. They dragged the third one away with them, leaving the human corpse to burn on the street. Candor grimaced - he'd been watching too. "Recruited the boy myself..." a low rumble - angry, but still just barely under control. "That was one of our Spheres. They were meant for next year, the day of the festival. They were meant for the noble district." He turned to the side, spitting out his distaste. "Well, nothing to it. We have to salvage what we can. Come on, kid." He slapped her back roughly, then began his circuitous route down the shantytown, a route meant to deftly avoid the burning portions. She kept up as best as she could, following in the wake he left - people were crowding into the streets, stampeding in the opposite direction. He managed to keep his footing, even make progress through all the chaos. While the people fled to the top of the shantytown, away from the fire and the guardsmen, they pushed down towards the river. "Candor!" She called out - she had to call out several more times before she was finally heard. He stopped, setting his shoulder against the oncoming tide, looking towards her, silent. "Me pa and ma?" "We'll take care of them. It's you we need to get out of here." She gaped up at the man. The crowd was starting to thin out - those who'd decided to flee had pretty well already done it by now. "Out!?" A small nod. "- of the city, yes. They won't care you're a kid if they think you killed a noble." She reached over, then, grabbing onto his belt to stop him - he'd been about to get moving again. "Why?" A single word, but her look carried enough meaning. Why bother? Individual members of the gang were arrested all the time, some were even executed. That pained look came again, the older man looked away, groaning as he looked around, as if seeking an answer himself. "Some day, you kids will be all that's left of Chondath. We're done if we let them kill our children." There was some truth to his words - it showed in a faint glimmer of belief in his eyes. She knew it wasn't all the truth, some part of this story just didn't fit together, nor did his body language, but he turned away and started on his path before she could question further. The suddenly deserted streets carried only the echo of distant screams and the vague rumble of hungry flames, the smoke was thick enough to tear her eyes up, but not hot enough to sear her throat when she panted. The captain put a savage pace, taking every shortcut and running relentlessly downwards, towards the river. To his credit, they were close to it when they rounded a bend only to find a trio of guardsmen strolling up the street in formation. Commands were shouted out immediately - present weapons, identify himself, get down on his knees. He didn't comply, didn't move other than to look over his shoulder towards the girl and growl out. "From my right boot. Use it if you have to. Keep back, and run if you need." She searched his boot, a barely-noticed distraction next to the tall, imposing and armed man. She soon found what he'd meant - a long, narrow tube filled with a bright yellow concoction. She did as told, not a question in her mind, stepping away from the commotion, eyes wide. The guardsmen drew steel, commands growing louder and more insistent, mingling with threats. They were unnerved - she could see the whites of their eyes, the nervousness of their motions. In stark contrast, Candor moved not a muscle - a statue to human dignity facing down a trio of armed genasi. If there was anyone else there to see it, the scene may have been immortalized. When the guardsmen advanced on the man, brandishing their steel, events unfolded almost too fast to follow. Despite being too old for combat by the reckoning of many, in a blur of motion the three guardsmen were dispersed around the captain, one of them kneeling and clasping at a slashed throat - a pair of daggers had at some point flashed into the man's hand, who now kept a more balanced, fighting stance - he had expected the guardsmen to be confident charging down a seemingly unarmed foe, had counted on it. The following rounds of battle were far more grueling. Several times Jha'ahira felt the will bubbling up to either run away or run in and interfere - each time the older human was nicked, cut or burned, and each time he almost but not quite scored a killing blow on one of the Genasi. He moved with great economy of motion, every attack carried almost disturbing lethality about it - but the guardsmen were well-trained, armored and bearing shields. They held their own, and bit by bit they maneuvered to flank Candor. Once surrounded, the older man flicked a meaningful glance towards the girl at the edge of the battle, a small nod along with it, then exploded into movement. He kicked out at the air-head in front of him, pushing the genasi a long way away from the battle, then twisted around to parry, only barely, the attack from the remaining Genasi. Of necessity, he parried with both blades crossed, and the guardsmen pushed into the attack, beginning a dispute of strength that left Candor trapped and uncapable of reacting to the other guardsmen who was shaking his head clear as a magical breeze surrounded him, winds helping float him back onto his feet. The air-head suddenly exploded into flames, Jha'ahira's little flask of alchemist's fire proving both accurate and sufficient to the task of giving the man a screaming, horrifying death. The remaining guardsman, with the shock of the reversal and the glare of the light in his eyes, did not react in time to the knee that slammed into his gut, bending him forward and into two waiting blades. In an instant, it was over. On the way down to the docks, they did not run into another guard patrol - a good thing, as the severely bruised-up Candor would have drawn ample attention. As the sun came up, the burning shanty town lay behind them as the gang boss guided the girl onto a ship. The ship's captain was a Chondathan - his family had been trading in Sembia at the time of the Spellplague, and thus were trapped there but they'd never forgotten their origins. Favors were exchanged, and the girl soon had a place in the ship, in exchange for Candor's future assistance in smuggling, and the girl's work as a deckhand. She was away from the city before highsun. 8 Kythorn, 1472 DR (D) WIP 3 Eleasis, 1473 DR ® WIP 23 Nightal, 1474 DR (A) WIP 2 Hammer, 1476 DR (M) WIP 30 Marpenoth,1477 (B) WIP 2 Uktar, 1479 (N) WIP 3.5 Character Sheet Jha’ahira Dindrel Human Psionic Rogue 2/Psion 3/Unseen Seer 2/Thrallherd 4/Arcane Trickster 4 Chaotic Evil Attack Rolls Bab: +9/+4 Using fractional Melee: +13/+8 (With Insight) : Dagger: +17/+12 DMG: 1D4+9 (+11D6 acid on the first attack) Ranged: +15/+10 (With Insight) Manifester Levels: : Psychic Rogue: 2 : Psion: 13 PP: 223 (11 from Psy Rogue) HP: 46/46 (81) (Psicrystal has 58, and share pain spreads damage around) AC: 40 (+3 Dex, +11 Armor, +6 Shield, +3 Insight, +3 Natural, +4 Deflection) : Touch: 20 : Flat-Footed: 34 Read "Human Udoxia" information below for more details about Skill choices FEATS 1. Manifesting Prodigy 1. Inquisitor *Expanded Knowledge Construct 3. Overchannel 6. Extra Followers 9. Metapower 12. Persistent Power 15. Expanded Knowledge: Astral Construct Read "Human Udoxia" information below for more details about Feat choices CLASS FEATURES Trapfinding Sneak Attack: 4d6 Evasion Discipline: Telepath Thrallherd Leadership: 23 Psionic Charm (1/day cast it at -3 PP cost) Advanced Learning: Psionic Ranged Legerdemain 1/day (Use thief skill remotely)Impromptu Sneak Attack 1/day EQUIPMENT Nymph’s choker(cloak) +6 36.000 & Cloak of Protection +4 24.000 Gloves of Dexterity +4 16.000 Ring of Silence 12.000 Small Adamantine Dagger 3.005 Dagger 302 Padded Leather Armor 360 Torc of Power Preservation 36.000 Eternal Wand of Touch of Idiocy 4420 Tattoos: C + Psychic Reformation 2275 Allows changing powers, skills and feats (7) I + Psionic Revivify + C 5050 Instantly revived when killed (9) Mt + R + Prevenom Weapon+C Cons damage per attack + Dissolving Weapon +C Extra Acid damage on attacks Integrated Circuit 50 Transducer 875 LIVING UDOXIA With her Psychic Reformation Tattoo, Jha'ahira can switch feat and skill choices as a Standard Action, so long as she has Power Points available. This has significant implications for feat and skill choice blocks. Concerning Skills, as a Standard Action she can boost any Skill to have up to 18 Ranks in it. If there are synergies, those will generally be taken. In moments of great need of a specific skill, Skill Focus and Skill-related feats (e.g.: Negotiator for Sense Motive or Diplomacy) can be taken. In exceptional cases, the Psycristal can be made into an Item Familiar for a further +18. Concerning Feats, she can switch her choice with the exception of Manifesting Prodigy and Extra Followers (As removing those would cause significant IC oddity). Examples include taking Scribe Psionic Tattoo and Improved Psionic Tattoo upon working on those. Common feat choices and combos are: Single Feats Expanded Knowledge power not under Telepath or Universal Midnight Augmentation: -1 PP cost if Focus spent Overchannel: Take damage to count as ML up to +3 Boost Construct: Constructs can pick a second ability Persistent Power: Make a power persistent, PP cost +12 Double Feat Combos Scribe Tattoo+Improved Tattoo Psionic Endowment + Greater Psionic Endowment: Burn Psi Focus to gain +1 (+2) to DC for a power Earth Sense + Earth Power: Reduces power costs by 1 if standing on earth or stone Linked Power Astral Construct, Hustle + Metapower First power goes off normally, second power goes off at -2 PP with no action taken (making it possible to break normal PP cost limits) Triple Feat Combos Midnight Augmentation + Shape Soulmeld + Bonus Essentia: Gains a Soulmeld and -3 PP cost for power augmentation if focus is spent Overchannel+ Metapower+Persistent Power: Persist any power up to 4th circle Common Soulmeld choices Blink Shirt (Can teleport 10ft as Standard Action - can ready it!) Bloodwar Gauntlets: +1 morale to attacks Bluesteel Gauntlets: +2 insight on init : Arms: Apply in area to all allies Displacer Mantle: +4 Competence on Hide : Shoulder: Gains concealment (20% miss chance, can hide) Impulse Boots: Gain Uncanny Dodge Kruthik Claws: +4 Competence on Hide and Move Silently Lucky Dice: +1 to attack/damage, or to saves, or to skill/ability checks : Hands: Applies to all allies Mage’s Spectacles: +4 to Spellcraft, Decipher Script and Use Magic. Can use untrained Sailor’s Bracers: +4 insight to Swim, profession(sailor), Use Rope Soulspark: Gets a lesser soulspark pet (CR 3) : Throat: Greater Soulspark (CR 7) Wormtail Belt: +2 enhancement to natural armor (Stacks with pre-existing) Lamia Belt: +4 competence on Bluff and Hide : Waist: +10 movement and Spring Attack